"What the hell do you think you're doing?" John asked them, feeling completely out of his depth but confidence springing from wanting to protect Sherlock.

"Don't worry about this Watson. We'll soon have this freak out of your hair," It was the dark haired girl John had been warned to avoid… Donovan or something, and next to her, who John presumed was her boyfriend, a thin weedy looking boy and flanking them, a couple of thug looking boys who were a good few pounds overweight. John could have pointed the group out a mile away as being the school's renowned bullies.

"Seriously, you can forget all about him," One of the larger boys stepped forward and was about to pull Sherlock up by his clothes when John stepped between them.

"I don't think that's necessary, you've already done more than enough,"

"I think my aim was a little off," They guy said, going to push John out of the way, but John held his ground.

"I don't. Please get out of my room."

"Do as he says Lukas," Donovan told the guy and the guy held his hands up in mock surrender and backed away. The four of them turned tails and left, just as a bunch of giggling girls rounded the corner of the corridor at the other end. They took one look at John and the injured Sherlock sat on the floor behind him and the giggling stilled to silence. John didn't wait for their comments and shut the door on them.

"Okay, so what hurts?"

"I'll clean up in my room," Sherlock said, shakily trying to get up. John pushed him back down to being sat on the floor.

"Not what I asked,"

"Nothing's broken, twisted ankle is probable but it hasn't started swelling yet. The rest is cuts and bruises,"

"Good; not much I need to clean up then is there,"

"I can do it myself,"

"Maybe you can, but I'm going to do it," Sherlock resigned himself to being treated like a doll; only flinching as John wiped at the cut to his face across his cheek, a black eye was also palely developing just above it.

When John hand finished Sherlock eyed him warily, like a wild animal caught in a trap.

"I'm sorry, was that really awkward? You just really looked like you needed help, just too stubborn to accept it."

"I should go," Sherlock said, standing and moving to the door before John could stop him. He paused a moment at the door and turned back to John, "Thank you," and the door swung shut behind him.

Now, John thought he'd completely screwed up his first few days at the college: pissed off the school bullied, and made things awkward for the guy he was sticking up for, who actually seemed to want to be John's friend in his own strange way. But no, John had messed up, again.

When he made his way down to breakfast the next morning Sherlock wasn't there so John joined Greg and the group of guys reiterating the match and mud wrestling of the previous evening.

"Hey Watson, you held you own last night pretty well," John shrugged, " Don't suppose you'd be interested for the school team? Gerris is useless,"

"Oi!" Came a yell from the other end of the table.

"You're never there!" The boy turned back to John, "So, You interested?"

"Sure, when is it?"

"Next practice is Friday, Lestrade can grab you a spare kit 'til we get your name printed up," Greg nodded from beside him and John hope that today would go better than the previous.

The lessons were all largely topics he'd covered before so he was glad of being able to keep up. By lunch though he was tired; having not had a good night's sleep in weeks, plus nerves and anxiety eating away at his insides. It was only made worse when he tried to convince himself he was stronger than his weakness. The nightmares were only getting worse. He was in darkness, isolated, reaching out to the things around him and the objects pulled away. Last night his sister had been sat crying into her drink sat on the back doorstep. In his dream she's looked straight at him and walked inside, locking him out. He didn't want to admit what they were suggesting either.

With a decreased appetite he decided to explore the school some more but his feet took him down a recognised route of corridors to Sherlock's small lab. Sherlock wasn't there but the door opened easily. John supposed the thick black residue that covered the window panel on the door deterred most people from venturing inside. Looking around his gaze travelled to the montage of newspaper clippings and printed sheets that filled a wall. All of them were on crimes with highlighted police comments and suspects, even evidence circles with big wording annotated all over them. Most had only one word next to them: WRONG.

"I don't know how he does it," John jumped to see Greg leaning against the door. "It's amazing but don't let him know I said that."

"He probably doesn't hear it to often,"

"He's too busy working to care,"

"Why did you follow me?"

"Because new kids wandering off by themselves get kidnapped by Sherlock Holmes and get experimented on," This time both of them jumped at Sherlock's voice. "I've heard the rumours Lestrade; now get out of my lab,"

"I'm not even in your lab!" Greg objected as Sherlock pushed past him.

"You're close enough to contaminate my experiments,"

"But John's all the way in there!"

"He's allowed,"

"Why?" Greg asked and John really didn't ant things to get difficult so ducking his head down he made to leave.

"Its fine I'll go too,"

"You don't have to," Sherlock caught his arm and John finally had to look up into his bruised face. He felt a twinge of guilt that he couldn't have done more to fix it.

"It's fine. I'll see you later okay, I need to get lunch anyway," John said shrugging off Sherlock's grasp and escaping past Greg who followed post haste to avoid any more interaction with Sherlock.

"How come you're allowed in there?"

"He showed me in there yesterday after lunch, explained his experiments,"

"But he usually throws a shit storm if anyone so much as looks in there, you saw how he was with me and I only stood in the doorway,"

"I guess he doesn't think I can do much harm,"

"I tried to be friendly to him once; he just gave me that cold look and I got the message,"

"There's nothing special about me,"

"You've attracted the attention of the genius recluse, I'd be proud if I wasn't a little weird-ed out,"